From the Vault: Max Brantley on his very first assignment

TWICE MONTHLY, 25 CENTS: The Sept. 19, 1974, concern of the Arkansas Times included a dive into the local theater scene, a list of Little Rock's finest delighted hours, an astrology column and a story titled "Plea Bargaining in Pulaski County."
Arkansas Times

The Arkansas Times turns 50 in 2024. To commemorate our golden anniversary, we're recalling at the history of the publication, along with periodic excerpts from some of our preferred stories over the previous half-century. This month, editor emeritus Max Brantley weighs in on his very first project and his favorite stories.

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I fulfilled Arkansas Times publisher Alan Leveritt in 1973 when he was a weekend obit desk relief male at the Arkansas Gazette and I remained in my very first year as a press reporter at the Gazette. We talked in the sluggish hours about his dream of starting a monthly magazine.

J. Wakeman Trimper] Alan was fired as a part-time worker (on what we called "the crap desk") for beginning his new publication.
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Alan laid it out (and jumbled the pages). I don't think I was paid the complete $35 I was assured ($ 25 for words, $10 for images).
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However I was a customer and admirer. When the mighty Gazette closed in the fall of 1991 and the Times chose to convert to weekly publication to fill the void left by the silencing of a resolutely progressive editorial voice, Alan, his then-wife Mara Leveritt and then-publisher Olivia Farrell persuaded me to join the Times as editor of the brand-new weekly in May 1992. I accepted after Alan matched a somewhat higher pay offer from the now-defunct Spectrum Weekly.

MAX BRANTLEY: At Arkansas Gazette city desk in 1973 or so.
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I remained editor until 2011, then continued as main writer of the Arkansas Blog, begun in 2004. I retired Feb. 1, 2023, after 50 years as a working newsman in Arkansas. Those years included more than 8 years of doing an everyday live Facebook news roundup and, for several years, a weekly podcast.

Lots of memories are associated with my 31-plus years at the Times. Costs Clinton's governmental campaign was the subject of our first weekly cover story. His presidency and the Whitewater examination, with the associated upheaval in state government, were journalism gold and brought the Times periodic national media attention.
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During my time as editor, the radiance of contributors like George Fisher, Ernest Dumas, Robert McCord, Mara Leveritt, Bob Lancaster, Leslie Newell Peacock, David Koon and Lindsey Millar (to name a few) continued the Times' historical capability to draw in talent far richer than its bankroll.

For particular luster, I always point to Bob Lancaster's coverage of the conviction of the West Memphis Three in the deaths of three children. His prescient analysis of the problematic prosecution case would be borne out in time by the offenders' exoneration and release from prison (in one case, from death row).
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It was the very first of lots of Huckabee grifts, and our coverage of them and other political shenanigans did not endear the Times to the Huckster. He eventually cut off press services to the Arkansas Times, a method his daughter adopted from the outset of her campaign and which she continues, to a large degree, as guv.

Huckabee, like Clinton, likewise managed the Times some nationwide exposure when he made his not successful runs for president. We found him less genial than some in the national press corps and I'm pleased to say my compendium of the darker side of our guv, assembled from Times coverage for a nationwide publication, got a fair bit of attention. You might read it and decide our present gubernatorial apple didn't fall far from her pop's tree..
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